That Song by REM
by j1ack
Summary: It's the end of the world as we know it, and Freddie and Sam are the only ones left! Follow them as they are chased by an insane psychopath, war against mother nature, and maybe somewhere in the midst of it all, fall in love. Seddie. Please R&R.
1. There's a Bulldozer in the Living Room

**A/N: Please note that the beginning of this story takes place sometime _after_ iOMG but _before _iLost my Mind. Enjoy, and don't forget to review! =)**

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><p>Carly Shay's apartment looked the same as it always had, except for one small detail.<p>

There was a bulldozer sitting in the middle of the living room.

Some would consider a bulldozer sitting in the middle of an apartment a more sizable than "small" detail, but I just passed it off as probably being a part of one of Spencer's odd sculptures. Although, it would be interesting to know exactly _how_ Carly's slightly insane brother managed to get a 49 ton Caterpillar D9 into his apartment without so much as a nick on the wall.

Carly was sitting in front of the computer, looking up videos on SplashFace. Her long brunette hair streamed down her back, and her thin frame was slightly leaned over the counter as to look at her computer screen more closely. Anyone could see how I could have been attracted to her. When I broke up with her, I told her to come back to me if she still liked me after the whole hero thing had faded. A few months after that, I said to myself, "Freddie, you are still following a girl who you've liked ever since you can remember like a lost puppy dog. She only dated you because you had five minutes of fame in the town of herodom. So just let her go, already."

Carly heard the door open and turned around to greet me. "Hey Freddie! Sam's not here yet, so do you want some lemonade or something? You know how Sam tends to guzzle down anything that's in the fridge."

I tried to let Carly go. I really did, but I still couldn't help but notice when she walked by, the way her hips swayed as she walked across the room, the way her strawberry scent wafted toward me as she leaned across a table...

So I went to the only person who could help me with my little problem.

"In my vast experience with girls," Gibby said as he was sprawled across his couch (shirtless, of course), "I found that if you need to get rid of one girl from the forefront of your mind, you simply need to find another one."

I didn't have any girls in my life who could possibly fill that position. Except for—

"Sam!" Carly exclaimed as she brushed past me and toward her best friend.

Something of what Gibby had said must have stuck with my testsosterone levels. After talking with Gibby, I went over to Carly's house to do some work for the webshow. I was on my way out the door when Sam came in for a sleepover. That was the first time that I saw her. I mean _really _saw her. Her curly blond hair was cascading down her shoulders. She was wearing a shirt that took a nosedive in the front, showing just the right amount of cleavage. Her knee-length shorts were modest enough in length, but also tight enough to show off her legs. And then I got a boner. And then I ran so fast that no one ever knew.

After a cold shower (I'm not the type to go for the lube in this kind of situation), I called Gibby, who gave me the ever sage adage, "Well you obviously like her, man. Good for you."

"Thanks, Gibby," I muttered as I hung up the phone. "You're the epitome of helpfulness."

I'm not even going to mention the fact that she kissed me not even a week ago, and we still haven't talked about it.

"What's with the bulldozer?" Sam asked, snapping me back into the present. I love how she doesn't even notice I'm in the room.

"It's for one of Spencer's sculptures," Carly replied. "He got a special request from some rich guy who likes Spencer's work, so this guy put in a request to have a sculpture based around a bulldozer."

"There's a rich guy who likes Spencer's work?" Sam asked incredulously.

"I'm actually more shocked as to how he managed to get that thing in here," I said.

"Well, it's actually kind of a funny story..."

"Nobody touch the bulldozer!" Spencer shouted as he bounded down the stairs. The excitement on his face was equal to, if not more than a five year old's on Christmas. He was carrying so much multi-colored tissue paper and bottles of Elmer's glue that I wouldn't have even known it was Spencer, had I not heard his voice.

"What exactly are you planning to do with the giant piece of machinery that's sitting in our living room, Spencer?" Carly asked.

"Papier-mâché, of course!" Spencer exclaimed. He stumbled over to the counter, leaving a few shreds of tissue paper and one bottle of glue in his wake.

"You mean to tell me that you are going to cover that entire bulldozer in papier-mâché and sell it to some rich guy?" I asked unbelievingly.

"This I have got to see," Sam said. She went over to the fridge and pulled out the lemonade pitcher and a glass, which she then put down on the counter next to the computer. As she sat down, she poured herself a glass. "What? How many times in your lifetime are you going to see a man cover an entire bulldozer in papier-mâché?"

"Sam, we've have to do iCarly. We've been postponing this meeting since the last episode, and we only have three more days to plan!"

"That's what I've been trying to say! The next iCarly should be Spencer covering this bulldozer in papier-mâché! That would be the best iCarly ever!" Sam looked from Carly's face, to my face, and then back to Carly's. "Fine! We can go plan iCarly. Just make sure that Fredweird sets up a camera down here. You never know what might make for good viewing material."

"I knew you would understand," Carly said with a mocking smile as she led us upstairs to the studio, but she only got a halfway up the stairs before a pile of dust was thrown back into our faces.


	2. Kissing and Needles

I started hacking and coughing and spitting, as the dust had gotten in my eyes, nose, and mouth. I looked up, and Sam was absolutely covered from head to toe in the grey stuff. It took all my self-control to keep myself from laughing.

She must have been able to tell, because she said, "Don't you start laughing, Benson. You don't look too hot yourself."

I looked around Sam to see Carly's reaction, but she was gone, almost as if she had somehow turned into the dust. I turned around and saw a pile of dust where Spencer had been standing only moments ago, his tissue paper and glue bottles strewn across the floor.

Sam must have noticed the same things that I did. "Spencer and Carly Shay! Whatever prank you are trying to pull, it isn't funny! If you don't come out within the next 45 seconds, Mama is not gonna be happy!"

I had a sinking feeling in my gut that this wasn't just some prank. I ran out of Carly's apartment and into mine. "Mom? Mom!"

There was a pile of gray dust on the floor.

I looked out into the hallway. Two more piles of dust.

I ran for the stairs because I couldn't imagine waiting for an elevator in a moment like this. By now Sam was right on my tail.

"Benson, what's going on? Where has everyone gone? What's up with all this dust everywhere?" She yelled out the questions as our feet pounded down the stairs. I hit the lobby, and another pile of dust was sitting where Lewbert usually manned his post. I rushed out of the doors of the apartment building.

Wrecked cars littered the streets as far as the eye could see in either direction, some smoking while others were outright on fire. A few bicycles were laid on the pavement a few feet from us, but the most shocking thing was the lack of people. At this time of the day, people should be out and about, walking to work, driving home, riding a bike, walking their dog, doing _something, _but there was no one. Just piles of gray dust.

"Fredward Benson you tell me what is going on _right now_!"

We were back in my apartment, and I was rifling through some old equipment, looking for my microscope. I thought about her question; how should I answer it without getting my face broken?

"I think the human race has suffered from mass extinction, and you and I are the only survivors."

Her eyes lowered, and for a brief moment I thought she was going to cry.

"So why were we the only survivors?"

Silly me. Samantha Pucket doesn't cry.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out." After a few more seconds I found my microscope and plugged it in. It was a bit dusty, but it still worked. I crossed the room to where my mom kept one of her many emergency kits and cracked it open. I dug out two empty syringes and walked back over to where I had set up the microscope.

"I'm hoping that something in our blood can tell us why," I drew some of my blood and dropped a few drops onto a slide. I got the other syringe and waved it and Sam and said, "You're turn!" with a smile.

Sam didn't actually look so great. She was very pale and was sitting down on one of my kitchen chairs.

"Sam, you don't look so great."

"Well Freddork, I'm sure you were born looking worse." I really should have seen that one coming.

"I need to take your blood, Sam." She then muttered something unintelligible.

"What?"

"I said I'm afraid of needles! Okay! Now you know!" She then continued her sulking.

Don't blame me for the next sequence of events. I see an opprotunity; I take it. I knew she wouldn't reject me because she had so willingly thrown herself at me not too long ago. I put the syringe in my back pocket and out of sight. I crossed the room and lifted her face toward mine and kissed her. I could feel her entire mouth go rigid with surprise, but then she kissed me back. I would have sat there kissing her forever; it was the most blissful feeling in the world, but I was on a mission. I took the syringe from my back pocket and opened my eyes. One quick prick later and I pulled away. I let her eyes study my face for a moment, and then i leaned in to kiss the spot on her inner elbow where I had taken the blood.

"See?" I whispered. "That wasn't so bad."

And then she slapped me across the face. Eh, small price for trying to figure out how the world ended.

"Fredwart, how dare you take advantage of me like that just so you can run your little science experiment!"

She continued ranting in the background, but I just dropped some of her blood onto a different slide. I first studied Sam's blood, then mine. Both blood samples had anomalies in them; something about the blood didn't even look human. With Sam still yelling at me about something that I lacked, I dug out some strips to test blood type and put the remainder of the blood that I drew onto them.

"That's impossible," I whispered.

Sam must have noticed that I was actually saying something. "What?"

"These strips are supposed to show you your blood type. When blood comes into contact with it, certain sections will show clumping, or no sections show it. But when both of our blood samples hit the card, it didn't clump. It turned blue."

"So what does that mean, Benson? That we are some kind of mutant freaks?"

"More correctly, you are. You must have mutated to have a completely unique blood type. The only possible way that I must have gotten it is when you kissed me, although I have no idea how swapping spit would have passed on a genetic mutation of the blood..." I looked back at the card with my blood on it, which had been gradually changing back to red. I pulled out another test card and drew more of my blood and dropped it onto the card. This time, it stayed blue.

"So you're saying that I saved your life?"

"Yes," I said, but my mind was whirring rapidly. The blood sample I took before I kissed Sam was now a normal shade of red, but the sample I took after kissing her was still a bright shade of blue. Everything clicked together at once. It was temporary. I was going to have to keep swapping bodily fluids with Sam in order not to explode into a pile of gray dust on the floor.


	3. Motorcycles

"We have to go," I said.

"What?"

"We can't stay in Seattle. It gets too cold in the winter to survive without heating. We need to go south before winter hits." I rummaged around in one of the many survival kits that my mom had lying around the house for something, anything useful.

"How are we even going to get there? You saw how congested all of the roadways are with all the blocked traffic. We can't drive."

"That depends on what we are driving." I found two backpacks and began to fill them with supplies: food, bottled water, blankets, knives, pots and pans, matches, insect repellant, sunscreen...

"So what exactly are you planning on driving? A horse and buggie? Last time I checked, your mom didn't even let you get a license to drive a car, let alone any other kind of motor vehicle."

"Motorcycles," I said as I tossed her backpack.

She caught it deftly and swung it on her back. "_Motorcycles? _ Benson, you've got to be kidding me. When did you learn how to drive a motorcycle?"

"Mom was visiting some relative in another state who had some strange rash; you and Carly were having "girl time" or something. One of my friend's uncles was in town and teaching him how to do it, so he invited me along too."

I turned to leave my apartment, but Sam caught me by the arm. "Wait. Don't you think we should have some kind of funeral or something? Ya know, before we go? For Carly, and Spencer, and your mom? And maybe Gibby too?"

I had been so caught up in recent events that I guess my brain had just shut down all emotional functions. I hadn't even really thought about the fact that everyone I knew, except for Sam, was dead. I would never see them again during my lifetime. Maybe this was changing Sam and me; usually I would have been the one to notice things like funerals, while Sam would have been the one to go all commando.

"Yeah. We should."

Sam offered her hand, and I took it. She led me back into the hallway, where she then pulled a knife from her backpack. She began to carve into the wall across from Carly's and my apartment the full names of Carly, Spencer, Gibby, and my mom. Underneath the names she wrote, "Their memories will be cherished."

"What about your mom, Sam?"

"Her memory doesn't deserve to be cherished," she said grimly. We stood there for a few moments, looking at the crude carvings of what was now our friends' tombstone. After a while Sam put the knife back in her backpack and turned to me. "So where are we headed to look for motorcycles?"

Coincidentally, there was a motorcycle shop only a few blocks down from the apartment complex. We both walked quietly around the abandoned cars, bicycles, and one baby carriage. I think that was one of the most depressing things that I've ever laid my eyes on: an abandoned baby carriage with a tiny layer of dust under a white blanket with giraffes on it. We were both still in a somber state from our short funeral, and the piles of dust on the ground wasn't helping our mood. When we were a little over halfway there, the wind started to pick up, which threw the dust everywhere in the air. The wind wasn't particularly strong, but the amount of dust just waiting to be picked up and thrown into the air was very large. By the time we got to the motor cycle shop, both Sam and I were coughing violently from inhalation of the dust.

After we finished coughing up a lung, I gestured to the entire motorcycle shop and said, "Well Sam, I will give you the honor of choosing which one we are going to take."

Sam snorted. "I would have been the one picking even if you hadn't offered," she said, and then she proceeded to wander the store in search of a motorcycle. On the other hand, I just leaned back and took in the glory of her gorgeous figure.

After a few moments of searching, she called out to me. I got up and walked to where she was standing next to a bike. It was a simple black off-road bike. Nothing special about it at all.

"Interesting that you picked the least showy of all the bikes in here."

"Nothing interesting about it at all," she responded. "I figure an all-black bike will blend in better with the forest around here than, say, that blue one over there with the red flames across the side."

"Okay. We're going to need gas, though. Look around to see if they have any spare gas cans."

Sam and I looked for about fifteen minutes, but we couldn't find any trace of gasoline in the entire shop. The only thing we found even slightly related to gas were a few empty gas cans. We collected them and put them by the bike, hoping to fill them up later.

"We should sleep here tonight," I said. "It's getting dark, and the dust in the air outside isn't going to make traveling any easier. We can fill up the gas cans and the bike tomorrow morning."

"Sounds good." Sam pulled her sleeping bag from her backpack, flung it out across the floor, and crawled into it. I did the same. Our sleeping bags were about three or four yards apart. I thought it would be safer if they were closer together, but I wasn't going to be the one who suggested that.

After a few moments of trying to find sleep that wouldn't come in the now dark bike shop, I whispered, "Sam? Are you still awake?"

"Yeah," she whispered back.

"What did you mean back at the apartments when you said that your mom's memory didn't deserve to be cherished?"

"That's none of your business, Freddifer."

I listened for a while longer, but she didn't say anything more. After a while longer, I could even hear the soft sound of Sam snoring. I laughed quietly. Who would have guessed that Samantha Pucket snores?


	4. iEnded the World

I awoke thinking I was in my own bed. I thought that my mom was going to come in and tell me to hurry up because she had breakfast ready. I thought I was going to drive to school and see Carly and Sam and everything was normal.

Except it wasn't.

I opened my eyes to see Sam gazing out onto the empty street outside of the motorcycle shop. The wind from the storm the previous night picked up the grey dust and threw it around, but the worse part was the rain. The rain just turned everything into mud. The ground outside now just looked like some giant earthworm had tunneled up right into the heart of the city and threw up all over the streets.

Sam turned around to face me. How was it possible that she still looked amazing, even though she probably just woke up less than an hour ago?

"Come on, Fredweird. You said we needed to hit the road, right?" she tossed me a motorcycling helmet. "So let's hit the road!"

"Good morning to you, too," I responded. I got up and rolled my sleepingbag. "Do we have any food for breakfast?"

Sam tossed me an apple, or, more appropriately, she chucked it at my head. I'm kind of shocked that I caught it. "Here ya go, eat up."

I wondered at what some sleep could do for her. Yesterday she was freaking out and looking to _me_ for guidance, and today she's all, "Eat up, let's hit the road!" Girls can be so bipolar sometimes.

I took a bite of my apple, and then Sam asked for my sleepingbag. I tossed it to her in way so unlike the way she baseball-pitched that apple to me, I wondered how we were still friends after all these years.

A few minutes later, she announced, "All packed!"

"Okay," I responded. "Give me a few minutes."

I chunked the apple core into a nearby wastebasket, although I'm not sure why I bothered. It's not like anyone was going to be taking it out any time soon. There was a restroom in the back, which I made use of, and then I came back out, ready to, "Hit the road," as Sam put it.

She had our motorcycle laden down with our supplies, and she was leaning against it causually, digging dirt out from underneath her nails. When I walked in, she jumped up and said, "Are we gonna get this show on the road, Benson, or what?" I knew it was all an act. She was scared of riding on a motorcycle. She never got up early for anything, and she wouldn't be so impatient about leaving if she weren't scared.

I sighed and grabbed the keys off a nearby counter where I had set them last night. I put on my helmet and crossed the room to the motorcycle we had selected last night. I started the it and drove it outside very slowly. I wanted to make sure my skills weren't too rusty before I allowed Sam to climb on too. Sam had followed me on foot out of the shop. I signalled that she should get on, and she did, although I could tell that she was a bit wary at first at being so close to me. After I revved the engine and began speeding around broken down cars, she was gripping me so hard around the waist that I thought that I might be seeing the contents of my meager breakfast again.

My motorcycle created a wave of mud on either side of it, leaving everything in our wake covered in mud. We were riding south, so the sun was on our left, while a cool breeze came from the right. Sam's face was buried in my shoulder, and her arms were wrapped around my waist. I don't think that anything or anyone could have taken away from that moment, and I just realized how cheezy that sounded. I don't care.

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><p><em>No! <em>he thought. _That's impossible! I ended the world! I brought about the destruction of the entire human race! No one survived! _

No matter what he thought, he could still feel them, those two pounding hearts

"RAAAGGHHH!" he roared as he threw a chair across his lab, which made it more of a mess than it already was. There were two metal tables, each of them covered with little test tubes, lab notes, half-full beakers, and a few Bunsen burners.

"This is impossible! No one should have survived except me!"

He could feel them. He always could. Ever since he was a little boy, he could always feel every human heart, everywhere. There were constantly some that were starting up, while others slowed down to a stop. He reasoned with himself that the only way for him not to go mentally insane was to destroy all of them so he could finally get some peace. "Seattle," he muttered. "Just go to Seattle and kill them, and everything will be fine," he told himself almost in the same manner that a mother soothes her wailing infant. "You don't have to worry anymore, you can just go to Seattle and kill them and everything will be fine. Everything will be just fine..."


End file.
